


Coffee Beans and Hot Cocoa

by Lhugy_for_short



Category: Final Fantasy XV
Genre: All the signs are there, Confessions, First Kiss, Iggy is just really bad at reading them, M/M, Snow Day
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-23
Updated: 2017-12-23
Packaged: 2019-02-19 05:00:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,524
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13116561
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lhugy_for_short/pseuds/Lhugy_for_short
Summary: What begins as Ignis accompanying Noct to the arcade becomes something else entirely, as the two find themselves unexpectedly snowed in at a Garbucks.





	Coffee Beans and Hot Cocoa

**Author's Note:**

  * For [ataraxetta](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ataraxetta/gifts).



> For Ataraxetta on Tumblr, my Ignoct Secret Santa! They requested "Insomnia's first snow in decades" which somehow turned into fluffy Ignoct confessions in a cozy coffee shop. Hope you like it!

Winter had always been short in Lucis. The continent enjoyed a typically warm climate all year round, from the dust bowl of Leide to the humid mountains of Cleigne, and the Crown City of Insomnia was no exception. In December, the temperature merely fell to a noticeable chill, and it wasn’t until early February that residents went out went out in more than a jacket and scarf. Even then, it had been decades since the last time anyone outside of Galahd had seen snow. 

Which is precisely why no one had expected it that year, either. 

The forecast on the morning in question called for overcast skies, perhaps a little rain throughout the morning and afternoon. Nothing out of the ordinary, or so Ignis had thought when he agreed to accompany Noctis to the video arcade. Prompto, the prince explained, was stuck at school taking a makeup test for one that he had failed, and Gladio was attending some family function that was likely to last until well into the night. Ignis had cringed internally to think he’d been Noct’s last choice to invite, but an opening was an opening, and he’d never been able to say ‘no’ before anyway. 

So at precisely 10:30 am, he strolled up to the prince’s apartment building to pick him up. Noct was already outside waiting for him - a pleasant surprise, Iggy thought - and he waved a hand in greeting as he approached. Despite the late January chill, however, Noctis looked about as half-assedly dressed as ever: he wore a dark grey t-shirt under a thin hoodie, bare hands jammed in the front pocket for warmth, while his legs shivered visibly beneath a pair of black jeans. The cold air left his cheeks and nose pink, and his lips trembling as his breath passed between them in short, white puffs. 

Ignis slowed to a halt. It was no secret that the prince hated winter - he’d been born on one of the hottest days of the year, and thus his blood had always run warm - but to come outside dressed like this was beyond childish. He was putting his health at risk, and  _ that _ was something Iggy could not allow. 

“Highness, you’re going to catch cold,” he sighed. “ _ At least  _ go back upstairs and put on a proper coat.”

“Yeah, nice to see you, too, Specs.”

“Apologies.  _ Good afternoon _ , Noctis. Now please go change into something more appropriate.” 

The prince shrugged, his shoulders looking small beneath the loose-fitting hoodie. “I don’t have a coat. I lent it to Prompto and forgot to get it back,” he added in response to the incredulous look he was being given. “Besides, it’s gonna be hot in the arcade. I’d just end up carrying it around.” 

“Well, you look ridiculous dressed like that in this kind of weather.” Ignis folded his arms across his chest, as if to say  _ You’re not going out like that, young man, and that’s final _ . 

But, as usual, Noctis showed no intention of budging. “If you’re too embarrassed to be seen with me -- “

“You know that isn’t what I mean.” 

“Then what’s the problem? I’m not cold, let’s go already.”

“Highness….”

The conversation ended in concession, as it almost always did. Ignis sighed repeatedly as he allowed Noctis to take the lead, refrained from comment while they walked together, though his concern never once abated. Gradually, the further they got from Noct’s apartment the more relaxed the prince became, until he was smiling and joking and hanging back to fall into step with Iggy. The mood was contagious. After a while, even Ignis found himself caught up in the playful way Noctis was clinging to his arm, and the way his eyes shone when he laughed. Though the air had grown noticeably colder, Ignis felt his cheeks flushing with warmth. 

Perhaps that was why he failed to notice at first. Too distracted by the sensation of Noctis’ fingers coiled around his elbow, it wasn’t until the gentle flakes landed on his skin that he even realized it had begun to snow. His eyes widened at the same time as Noct’s, and together they paused to look up at the sky in awe. 

“Specs?”

“Yes, Noct?”

“Is that...what I think it is?”

“It would appear so.”

The prince shifted closer, as if suddenly noticing the cold for the first time. “I’ve never seen snow before.”

“I have, but never in the city. This is highly unusual, and yet….”

“It’s beautiful.”

Ignis’ breath hitched in his throat. Out of the corner of his eye he saw Noctis, lips parted and gaze cast up toward the blanket of clouds above them. All around, white flakes drifted down, down, growing thicker and heavier by the second, until they began to cling to jet black hair and clothes alike. 

“...You must be freezing,” he observed aloud, if for no other reason than to silence the pounding of his own heart at the sight. “Here, take my scarf.”

Noctis didn’t protest this time. As Ignis unwrapped the thick, chocolate-colored fabric from his shoulders, the prince remained completely spellbound by the snow falling all around them. He watched on, wide-eyed, as it began to collect on the sidewalk, the grass, and even on Ignis when he turned to face him. But despite the cold, Iggy was smiling. His scarf was so warm - smelled of coffee and citrus and the cologne he sometimes wore - and Noctis immediately held it to his face and breathed in deep.

“Thanks,” he said, voice muffled by the heavy wool. “You’re not cold?”

Green eyes, soft behind fogged lenses, seemed to draw him in. “Not at all. But perhaps we should find a warm place to wait until this storm blows over.”

Noctis agreed, and they turned off the main road in search of shelter. 

They found it moments later in the form of a Garbucks coffee shop, thankfully still quiet in the hour before the lunch rush, and together they settled down with steaming mugs to watch the snow fall outside the window. Ignis sipped his latte - it was hardly an Ebony, but at least it went down smooth - while Noctis nursed a hot cocoa, and they talked together while the hours melted away. 

The lunch crowd came and went, and outside the snow only fell heavier, piling higher and higher until Ignis began to wonder how they would ever get home. By that time, Noct had wiggled in beside him in the overstuffed armchair, and had his head resting on Iggy’s shoulder while they talked. It was comfortable, relaxing, neither of them thinking anything more of the display than how natural it felt to cuddle close. All the while, Noct wore Ignis’ scarf around his neck. 

“Well,” Iggy announced at last. “I’m afraid we’re going to need to call for backup at this point. Otherwise we may be stuck here in this coffee shop all night.” 

“Like you’d really mind,” Noct grinned, referring, of course, to Iggy’s love for coffee and completely missing the blush that flared across his friend’s cheeks. “But I guess we could call Gladio. He’s got his dad’s truck.”

Something tugged at the back of Ignis’ mind. "I suppose we could," he began slowly.

"Or maybe we could make it to Prom’s place. He lives near here, and his parents usually aren’t home."

"Is that so?" Suspicion rose in the form of a frown. "I thought Prompto was meant to be at school all afternoon."

“O-oh, right. Yeah, he is,” Noct supplied hastily. “Uh, I meant maybe if he finished early. Or something.”

“And Gladio?” Now Ignis was looking right a him with one eyebrow arched high over piercing green irises. “I believe it was  _ you  _ who told me he’d be occupied until evening?”

If Noct could have sunk back any further into the chair, he would have disappeared right through the cushions. “Um…. I forgot?”

“ _ Noctis.” _

“Alright, alright! So I made that stuff up - but it’s not like I had a choice or anything. It was the only way to get you to come out with me.”

Whatever Ignis had been expecting, it certainly wasn’t such candid honestly. And the way the prince was flushing, cheeks red as he glared out the window…. Suddenly, he was very much aware of the proximity of their bodies in the chair. “What are you talking about?” he pressed, forcing his voice lower, calmer, hoping he didn’t sound as panicked as he felt in that moment. 

Practically in his lap, Noctis huffed. “Seriously? Whenever I try to spend time with you, all I hear is,  _ ‘I’m busy, Highness, why not call Prompto? _ ’ or ‘ _ Surely Gladio has nothing better to do today?’ _ ” Despite the poor attempt at mimicking his accent, the words still managed to hit Ignis like a blast of icy water. He hadn’t actually said those things to the prince...had he? 

Still avoiding his gaze, Noct continued. “I had to make it feel like an obligation, otherwise you would have just passed me off on someone else again.”

“That…. That has never been my intention.”

“Oh, yeah?” Blue eyes turned on him at last, wounded and yet heavy with something else, too. Hope, perhaps, that he would be proven wrong. “What would you have said, then?” 

Ignis’ chest was tight, his fingers itching to pull Noctis against him and take back every missed opportunity. What  _ would  _ he have said? He tried to imagine the scene: Noct catching him on his way home for the evening, casually inviting him to spend a day at the arcade. It wouldn’t have mattered that he wasn’t really interested in games, or that he had work to do in the morning. He would have  _ wanted _ to go. He would have  _ wanted  _ to tell Noctis yes, to please him, to see him smile. He wanted to give Noct the world and then some, because he -- 

Ignis sighed. It was precisely  _ because  _ of that - because Noctis had come to mean more to him than his duty or his job - that he would have been forced to turn him down in the end. It was too great a risk. “I...suppose you have a point.”

“ _ See _ .”

Voice falling flat, the prince turned his gaze back to the window and to the heavy flakes of snow falling beyond it. Outside, the streets had been transformed into a winter wonderland, everything from the sidewalks to the streetlamps swallowed up in white. There were no pedestrians, no cars, no bicycles. Even the small coffee shop had grown all but silent around them, most of the other patrons no doubt having escaped while there had still been a chance. Only a few others were left sitting at the tables in the back of the shop, Iggy noticed, and not a single one of them was looking his way.

He swallowed. 

“Noct? May I ask you something?”

A noncommittal shrug told him the prince was, in fact, upset. 

“Why  _ me _ ? You could have asked anyone in the Citadel to accompany you to the arcade.”

“Because I didn’t want to go with  _ anyone in the Citadel _ ,” Noct murmured so quietly that Ignis wasn’t quite sure he heard him correctly. “Today was supposed to be special.”

Ignis glanced out at the snow again, the first that had fallen in Insomnia in more years than either of them had even been alive, and smiled. “Today  _ has  _ been special.”

"Yeah, but. It was supposed to be….” Noctis shrugged, waved his hands in the air and sighed, but ultimately just sank back in the chair in frustration. “It was supposed to be  _ more. _ ”

_ More _ .

Ignis thought about the sight of the prince, dressed in an obvious hurry, waiting for him outside of the apartments. He thought of the easy way Noctis had laughed and hung from his arm as they’d walked together down the street. He thought, too, of the color of those soft cheeks when he’d draped his scarf around Noct’s neck, the deep eyes that had watched him in wonder. 

_ More. _

His throat went dry. How could he have missed it? How long had the signs been there while he’d been too determined not to see them? How many times had he convinced himself it was impossible that Noct could ever feel the same way as him? And how in the  _ Astrals’ names _ was he ever going to find the strength to talk them both out of this one?

“...Noct, I-”

“It’s stupid, I know. Just forget I said anything, alright?”

“It isn’t  _ stupid _ . But you know as well as I do that we...we simply  _ can’t _ .”

Blue eyes rounded on him in surprise. “...Can’t what?”

“ _ Date _ , Noctis! It would be highly improper! Just think what your father would do to me if he found out!” 

But there was that color tinting the prince’s cheeks again, the one that made it clear Noct had seen right through him. And sure enough, the next words out of his mouth confirmed exactly what he’d read between the lines. “But... _ you’d _ be okay with it?”

Ignis snapped his mouth shut instantly. There was nothing he could say short of an out-right lie that would prevent him from walking right into a trap. As it were, perhaps it was already too late. The prince was regarding him with more than just casual interest now, and swiveling in the chair to face him more fully. 

“What if this was a date? Right here, just the two of us, with no one to see,” he asked, smile growing a little bolder with each word. “What would you do?”

The awkward sound that started in the back of Iggy’s throat was hidden masterfully behind a polite cough. “Hypothetically? Well. I suppose I would….”  _ Six, forgive me. I’m only human.  _ His arm was moving before he could change his mind, sliding up the length of Noctis’ back between him and the cushion to finally come to rest around his shoulders. When Ignis drew him in, the prince settled easily against his chest. 

“Wow,” Noct breathed, face flushing an even prettier shade of red. “It’s nice. H-hypothetically, I mean.”

“Right.”

“I don’t...want to go to Prom’s place.”

Ignis stroked his fingers over the strands of black hair lining Noct’s cheek. “We could stay a little while longer, I suppose.”

“Call Cor, tell him we got snowed in?”

“At a Garbucks, of all places.”

“Might have to stay here all night from the looks of things.”

“Better not get any  _ ideas _ , Highness.”

Noct grinned up at him - a brilliant, mischievous grin - as he somehow managed to shift even closer against his side. He drew himself up, curled his fingers in the collar of Iggy’s dress shirt and pressed forward until the scarf around his neck was the only barrier between them. Ignis, for his part, forgot how to breathe. “Ideas? Never. This is all hypothetical.”

And so it went that Ignis and his prince shared their first kiss in the cozy warmth of a coffee shop, wrapped in each other’s arms in an overstuffed chair while the snow continued to fall outside the window well into the winter’s night.

  
  



End file.
